Frank S. Ravitch

Professor Ravitch's career has included experience in private practice and on Capitol Hill. Since joining Michigan State University's Law College he has authored several books, and a number of law review articles, essays, book reviews, and book chapters, as well as amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is the author of Marketing Creation: The Law and Intelligent Design (Cambridge University Press 2012), Masters of Illusion: The Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses (NYU Press 2007); Law and Religion, A Reader: Cases, concepts, and Theory (West 2004) (3rd edition due 2015), School Prayer and Discrimination: The Civil Rights of Religious Minorities and Dissenters (Northeastern University Press, 1999 & paperback edition 2001); and Employment Discrimination Law (Prentice Hall, 2005) (with Pamela Sumners and Janis McDonald).

Currently, Professor Ravitch is working on a treatise, Religion and the State in American Law with Scott Idelman and the late Boris Bittker (Cambridge University Press expected 2015). This project is supported by a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment. Professor Ravitch's articles, which have appeared in a number of highly regarded journals, have primarily focused on law and religion, but he has also written about civil rights law and disability discrimination.

In 2001, he was named a Fulbright scholar and served on the law faculty at Doshisha University (Japan), where he taught courses relating to U.S. constitutional law and law and religion. He serves on a Fulbright Review Committee under the auspices of the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars. Complementing his professional service is his commitment to community service; Professor Ravitch has made dozens of public presentations explaining the law before school groups, community groups, and service clubs and has served as an expert commentator for print and broadcast media.

He teaches Constitutional Law, Law and Religion, Torts I, and Law and Interpretation. His current research projects include work on the treatise mentioned above, and an article explaining how the Supreme Court's recent decision in Hobby Lobby harms the Free Exercise of Religion for traditional religious entities. He speaks English, Japanese and Hebrew.

Constitutional Law I(Formerly DCL 171)
An introduction to American constitutional law. This course surveys the distribution of national powers among the Congress, the president and the federal judiciary. After examining the fundamentals of judicial review and its limitations, the course considers the delegated powers of Congress and the tensions between Congress and the president in the exercise of national powers. The course concludes with an overview of governmental immunities. Some sections of Regulatory State and constitutional Law I are taught as a combined class.

Law and InterpretationThis course will explore the ways in which judges and other legal actors interpret the law. Anyone who has studied law for even a short period of time quickly becomes aware that there are a variety of legal and jurisprudential tools that judges can use in interpreting the law. In this course we will explore the various tools judges use in interpreting cases, as well as a number of the theoretical schools that influence or help us understand judicial decision-making. We will do this by analyzing cases and by studying the various tools/theories relevant to legal interpretation. The course will cover legal interpretation in the contexts of constitutional, statutory, and common law. The hope is to look underneath the cases and try to understand how great legal minds (judges, lawyers, and scholars) can look at the same or similar facts and law, yet reach significantly varied interpretative results.

Law and Religion(Formerly DCL 530)
This course will focus on church/state law -- the legal doctrines that have arisen in cases under the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The course will explore the role of law in various religious traditions and the role of religion in law and public discourse. Topics addressed include school prayer, government aid to religious institutions (including school vouchers and charitable choice), government endorsement of religious symbols, the role of public forum doctrine in religion cases, freedom of religious expression, and the freedom to practice one's religion.

Professional Responsibility(Formerly DCL 260)
A course designed to acquaint the law student with many of the obligations owed by the lawyer, both individually and as a member of the legal profession, to the society in which he/she lives. In addition to a discussion of ethical problems involved in the practice of law, an overview of all phases of the profession will be undertaken, including disciplinary proceedings, the functions of Bar organizations and unauthorized practice. Students who have already taken Lawyer Regulation and Ethics in a Technology-Driven World may not take this course.

Torts I(Formerly DCl 141)
The study of the protection that the law affords against interference by others with one's person, property or intangible interest. It is broadly divisible into three areas of liability: intentional interference, negligence and strict liability. Specific tort actions and defenses are analyzed. Each is examined in the context of underlying social and economic factors that provide the framework in which law develops and social conflict is managed.

School Prayer and Discrimination: the Civil Rights of Religious Minorities and Dissenters (Northeastern University Press 1999, paperback edition 2001).

Chapters

Philosophical Hermeneutics in the Age of Pixels: Hans-Georg Gadamer, Peter Tiersma,and Dasein in the Age of the Internet, in Speaking of Language and Law: Conversations on the Work of Peter Tiersma (Oxford Univ. Press, forthcoming 2015).

Religion, Neutrality, and Liberty: Epistemology and Judicial Interpretation, in The Rule of law and the Rule of God (Palgrave MacMillan, Simeon Ilesanmi ed., 2014).

Religion and the Law in American History, in The Columbia Guide to Religion in American History (Paul Harvey & Edward Blum, eds., Columbia Univ. Press, 2012).

Judicial Interpretation, Neutrality, and the U.S. Bill of Rights, in Freedom of Religion Under Bills of Rights (Paul Babie & Neville Rochow, eds. Univ. of Adelaide Press 2012).

Law, Religion and Science– Determining the Role Religion Plays in Shaping Scientific Inquiry in Constitutional Democracies– The Case of Intelligent Design, Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Law and Social Order (Addleton Academic Publishers 2011).

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Neutrality: Broad Principles, Formalism, and the Establishment Clause, 38 Georgia Law Review 489 (2004).

The Supreme Court’s Rhetorical Hostility: What is “Hostile” to Religion Under the Establishment Clause? 2004 Brigham Young University Law Review 1031 (2004) (symposium).

Locke v. Davey and the Lose-lose Scenario: What Locke Could Have Said, but Didn’t, 40 Tulsa Law Review (2005) (symposium).

Some Thoughts on Religion, Abstinence Only, and Sex Education in the Public Schools, 26 Children’s Legal Rts. J. 48 (2006) (symposium based on presentations for the AALS Section on Education Law panel at the 2006 AALS Annual Meeting).

Struggling With Text And Context: A Hermeneutic Approach to Interpreting and Realizing Law School Missions, 74 St. John’s Law Review 731 (2000) (symposium).

The Americans With Certain Disabilities Act: Title I Of The ADA And The Supreme Court’s Result Oriented Jurisprudence, 77 Denver University Law Review 119 (2000)(with M. Freeman).

Creating Chaos In The Name of Consistency: Affirmative Action And The Odd Legacy Of Adarand Constructors Inc. v. Pena, 101 Dickinson Law Review 281 (1997).

Hostile Work Environment And The Objective Reasonableness Conundrum: Deriving A Workable Framework From Tort Law For Addressing Knowing Harassment of Hypersensitive Employees, 36 Boston College Law Review 257 (1995).

Contextualizing Gender Harassment: Providing An Analytical Framework For An Emerging Concept In Discrimination Law, 1995 Detroit College of Law at Michigan State Law Review 853 (lead article in annual labor law issue).

Beyond Reasonable Accommodation: The Availability And Structure Of A Cause Of Action For Workplace Harassment Under The Americans With Disabilities Act, 15 Cardozo Law Review 1475 (1994).

I have also written, or am in the process of writing, a number of short entries for a variety of legal encyclopedias, including: The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties; Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States; Encyclopedia of the First Amendment.

Book Reviews

Review of Holy Writ: Interpreting Law and Religion (Arie-Jan Kwak, ed., Ashgate Publishing 2009), in International J. for the Semiotics of Law (forthcoming 2011).

Review of Guyora Binder and Robert Weisberg, Literary Criticisms of Law (Princeton Univ. Press 2000), 18 International J. for the Semiotics of Law (2004).

Can an Old Dog Learn New Tricks? A Nonfoundationalist Analysis of Richard A. Posner’s, THE PROBLEMATICS OF MORAL AND LEGAL THEORY, 37 TULSA LAW REVIEW 967 (2002) (invited by the Law Review for Legal Scholarship Symposium issue
dedicated to Morton Horwitz).

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

Brief Amicus Curiae in support of Pet. for Writ of Cert. in Hecker v. Deere (2009).